While many of us are looking for less Facebook in our lives, there is a group of power users that Facebook Home will certainly appeal to.
The messaging-centric aspects of Home show Facebook’s understanding of the increasing importance of chat to their younger users. It’s better for Facebook to own chat as much as possible as third-party chat apps continue to gain adoption and Google is rumored to be acquiring WhatsApp. The multitasking chat feature in Facebook Home, which allows users to use Facebook Messenger seamlessly while in other apps, solves a great frustration for mobile users who have to switch back and forth from chatting to the app they are in. With that in mind, where Facebook Home gets really interesting is its potential as the perfect vehicle for Graph Search.
Although not announced at the time of launch, if Graph Search functionality comes to Facebook Home, staying within one environment to do as much as you can will make for a better user experience. While in the Facebook environment, you would no longer have to open up your mobile browser to search, or another app like Yelp. Facebook Home already removes Google Search from Android device’s home screen, this would create yet another barrier to accessing Google.
While many experts are skeptical on its widespread adoption of Facebook Home, and there have been concerns raised over privacy issues, if the experience succeeds in making things easier for the user, then those concerns will be trumped by our desire for convenience.